U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms

As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama was an aggressive advocate for expanding gun control laws, and even voted against legislation giving gun owners an affirmative defense when they use firearms to defend themselves and their families against home invaders and burglars. He also served on a 10-member board of directors of the radically activist anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago during a period between 1998-2001when it contributed $18,326,183 in grants to anti-Second Amendment organizations.

If someone breaks into your home when you are there, which would you prefer to have close at hand: 1) a telephone to call 911, or 2) a loaded gun of respectable caliber? That's a pretty easy question for me to answer. I am a long-time NRA member, concealed firearms license holder and a regular weekly recreational pistol shooter. And while I don't ordinarily care to target anything that has a mother, will reluctantly make an exception should an urgent provocation arise. I also happen to enjoy the company of friends who hunt, as well as those, like myself, who share an abiding interest in American history and the firearms that influenced it.

There are many like me, and fewer of them would be alive today were it not for exercise of their gun rights. In fact law-abiding citizens in America used guns in self-defense 2.5 million times during 1993 (about 6,850 times per day), and actually shot and killed 2 1/2 times as many criminals as police did (1,527 to 606). Those civilian self-defense shootings resulted in less than 1/5th as many incidents as police where an innocent person was mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%).

Just how effectively have gun bans worked to make citizens safer in other countries? Take the number of home break-ins while residents are present as an indication. In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, nearly half of all burglaries occur when residents are present. But in the U.S. where many households are armed, only about 13% happen when someone is home.

Recognizing clear statistical benefit evidence, 41 states now allow competent, law-abiding adults to carry permitted or permit-exempt concealed handguns. As a result, crime rates in those states have typically fallen at least 10% in the year following enactment.

So the majority in our Senate is smart enough to realize that the U.N.'s gun-grab agenda is unconstitutional, politically suicidal for those who support it, and down-right idiotic---right? Let's hope so, but not entirely count on it. While a few loyal Obama Democrats are truly "pro-gun", many are loathe to vote against treaties that carry the president's international prestige, causing him embarrassment.

Also, don't forget that Senate confirmation of anti-gun Obama nominee Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Many within the few who voted against her did so only because of massive grassroots pressure from constituents who take their Constitutional protections very seriously.

Now, more than ever, it's imperative to stick by our guns in demanding that all Constitutional rights be preserved. If not, we will surely lose both.